1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention relates generally to task management, and more particularly to a computer-based system and method for achieving task management.
2. Related Art
Computer-based tools having limited task management capabilities exist today. These existing tools essentially fall into three categories.
The first category is typified by "Lotus Agenda" and provides for management of task-related data. Tools which fall into this first category are limited in that they do not define hooks to the actual work performed or to project management tools. For example, they cannot automatically track time spent executing tasks. Additionally, tools which fall into this first category are limited because they do not include triggers for automatically initiating actions in the computing environment based on the task which is currently being performed.
The second category is typified by any number of project management tools which are on the market today, such as "XPM" and "Viewpoint." Tools which fall into this second category provide for project tracking, project estimation, and "what if?" analysis. However, these second category tools are limited because they do not include triggers for automatically initiating actions in the computing environment based on the task which is currently being performed. Also, they usually do not provide automatic tracking of time spent executing tasks. Additionally, data entered into these second category tools can only be used by the tools themselves. Such data cannot be easily exported and used by other tools. In general, these systems provide assistance to the project manager but not the task implementer.
The third category is typified by a Columbia University MARVEL project. The Columbia University MARVEL project is described in "Experience with Process Modeling in the Marvel Software Development Environment Kernel" by Gail Kaiser, Naser S. Barghouti, and Michael H. Sokolsky (23rd Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, January 1990, pages 131-140). In this third approach, a relatively elaborate process engine is used with a process description language for describing software processes including constraints and enactable components. However, systems which fall into this third category are flawed because they use ad hoc mechanisms (or none at all) for communicating with users. In fact, many such third category systems operate entirely without terminals and thus have no mechanism for providing interactive communication with users. Thus, they poorly handle enaction of processes involving manual steps.